This is not particularly surprising:
In a blink, the wisdom of the crowd became the fury of the crowd. In the last few days, contributors to Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia, have turned against one of their own who was found to have created an elaborate false identity.
Under the name Essjay, the contributor edited thousands of Wikipedia articles and was once one of the few people with the authority to deal with vandalism and to arbitrate disputes between authors.
To the Wikipedia world, Essjay was a tenured professor of religion at a private university with expertise in canon law, according to his user profile. But in fact, Essjay is a 24-year-old named Ryan Jordan, who attended a number of colleges in Kentucky and lives outside Louisville.
Mr. Jordan contended that he resorted to a fictional persona to protect himself from bad actors who might be angered by his administrative role at Wikipedia. (He did not respond to an e-mail message, nor to messages conveyed by the Wikipedia office.)
The Essjay episode underlines some of the perils of collaborative efforts like Wikipedia that rely on many contributors acting in good faith, often anonymously and through self-designated user names. But it also shows how the transparency of the Wikipedia process — all editing of entries is marked and saved — allows readers to react to suspected fraud. . . . .
Freerepublic has more information on Mr. Jordan:
This Essjay character is VERY typical of the Wikipedia administrator elite. The NYT has the basics, but they also leave out a lot about him.
Specifically - Essjay claimed to be a homosexual theologian and frequently espoused far left versions of Christianity in his article edits. He basically used his phony Ph.D. to browbeat his leftist point of view into articles on Christianity by citing himself as an expert.
He is also one of dozens of radical gays who CURRENTLY populate the upper tiers of wikipedia's administration. This guy is just the tip of the iceburg at Wikipedia. .
Some people are trying to set up an alternative to Wikipedia. Given the liberal bias of Wikipedia, they claim that "Wikipedia is "anti-American", "anti-Christian" and "anti-capitalism" according to US fundamentalist Christians who have set up their own online reference site, Conservapedia, to protect themselves from the evils of the world."
Under the name Essjay, the contributor edited thousands of Wikipedia articles and was once one of the few people with the authority to deal with vandalism and to arbitrate disputes between authors.
To the Wikipedia world, Essjay was a tenured professor of religion at a private university with expertise in canon law, according to his user profile. But in fact, Essjay is a 24-year-old named Ryan Jordan, who attended a number of colleges in Kentucky and lives outside Louisville.
Mr. Jordan contended that he resorted to a fictional persona to protect himself from bad actors who might be angered by his administrative role at Wikipedia. (He did not respond to an e-mail message, nor to messages conveyed by the Wikipedia office.)
The Essjay episode underlines some of the perils of collaborative efforts like Wikipedia that rely on many contributors acting in good faith, often anonymously and through self-designated user names. But it also shows how the transparency of the Wikipedia process — all editing of entries is marked and saved — allows readers to react to suspected fraud. . . . .
Freerepublic has more information on Mr. Jordan:
Specifically - Essjay claimed to be a homosexual theologian and frequently espoused far left versions of Christianity in his article edits. He basically used his phony Ph.D. to browbeat his leftist point of view into articles on Christianity by citing himself as an expert.
He is also one of dozens of radical gays who CURRENTLY populate the upper tiers of wikipedia's administration. This guy is just the tip of the iceburg at Wikipedia.
Some people are trying to set up an alternative to Wikipedia. Given the liberal bias of Wikipedia, they claim that "Wikipedia is "anti-American", "anti-Christian" and "anti-capitalism" according to US fundamentalist Christians who have set up their own online reference site, Conservapedia, to protect themselves from the evils of the world."
Yet, more problems with Wikipedia
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